The Political Whore

Catch me at 10 a.m. on 10 Connects’ Studio 10. We talk health care today. Think I can unveil my proposal for death panels?

Another TV news personality has been urged not to have children. The twist is that this time it is a male anchor, not a woman.

For those not enamored of following Florida media insider baseball, you can bail out now. But for the rest of us media whores, there is a wonderful story that has been playing out for a week or so in Miami, where the ABC affiliate WPLG has fired one of its anchors who now claims it is because he is (gasp!) gay.

Charles Perez has fought back, with a sexual orientation discrimination complaint (which he claims triggered the firing) and a blog post in the Daily Beast in which he details his claims that station management was afraid of his increasing gay profile and urged him not to have children with his male partner. (The station, in written statements, denies Perez’s allegations.)

Perez writes: Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago I announced to my wife that I would not be watching The Today Show in the mornings any more. I just got fed up with its growing tabloid style and insistence on flogging non-stories to death. Like this week’s “exclusive” multi-day interview with Susan Boyle. Or the dude trying to get his kid back from Brazil who is interviewed at least twice a week. Or the latest family with a loved one attacked by a critter/rescued from a certain death/dying from a disease/etc.

But this morning, I broke my rule and paid the price for it. Meredith, Matt, Al and the rest of the formerly great NBC morning news show led the broadcast with this top story: Barack Obama had ruined his newser on health care last night by criticizing the wrongful arrest of prominent Harvard prof Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week.

ABC’s Good Morning America apparently did the same thing.

St. Petersburg Times media critic Eric Deggans noticed, too, writing this AM:

…[W]hy did the Today show — by far TV’s most-watched morning show — spend its first segment this morning discussing what the president said about the arrest of a black scholar in Cambridge, Mass.?

Here is how the “journalists” left at NBC played the president’s desperate attempt to pull out his health care victory on the website this AM:

Read the rest of this entry »

Check me out as I talk about the politics of health care reform today at 12:30 on Your Turn with Kathy Fountain on Fox 13.

Further reading from the .PDF Library:

white_house_forum_on_health_reform_report

Hidden Costs

OK, enough with the tragedy of TV’s most annoying yet lovable pitchman.

Billy Mays at the Mickey D’s drive-thru …

h/t to Watch This Now

Rhodes, after a deputy beat the snot out of him shoved him to the ground during his arrest.

On his return to the air weeks after his arrest.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

Rhodes, 50, was supposed to be tried today on charges tied to his Jan. 16 arrest. But the trial was continued until Wednesday because his attorney was awaiting transcripts from a previous hearing.

Now, instead of going to trial, Rhodes will plead no contest on Wednesday to a misdemeanor obstruction charge, defense attorney Jeff Brown said.

As part of the plea deal, Rhodes will serve 50 hours of community service. Adjudication will be withheld, meaning he will not have a conviction on his record.

Reporters are gathering at the Hillsborough Medical Examiner’s Office for a noon newser at which a preliminary report into the death of famed TV pitchman Billy Mays is set to be released. We’ll pass along coverage on Twitter (follow @poho) and over at the Daily Loaf blog.

“You’re the president, not a rerun of Law and Order.”

Oldie but goodie: Laura Ingraham had a rough time helming her own show:

The top headlines after the jump …

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